Friday, June 27, 2008

Obama Invents Vote That Wasn't There

Barack Obama released his first general election ad on Friday, which seems aimed above all to answer some early concerns about his biography and experience. It’s a well made ad, but it also offers an example of the kind of brazen padding of the resume that Obama will inevitably need to engage in, and which will carry serious risks for him.

About 46 seconds into the ad, we are told that Obama “passed laws” that “extended healthcare for wounded troops who’d been neglected,” and in the usual manner of these political commercials we are given a little citation at the bottom. The citation reads “Public Law 110-181 1/28/08”. That law is the only federal legislation cited in the ad — the other two items mentioned were from the Illinois legislature and referred to other issues raised in the ad.

Public Law 110-181 was the 2008 defense authorization bill. It passed the Senate by 91 to 3 in January, with six Senators not voting. Among those six absentees was Barack Obama. So he cites a bill he didn’t even vote for. Did he contribute to it in some way that might be reasonably referred to as extending healthcare for wounded troops who’d been neglected? It certainly doesn’t seem that way, as even Obama supporters at the Daily Kos discovered when they tried to answer some of the bloggers who pointed to Obama’s citation of the bill. They found that Obama had tried to insert an amendment that had to do with screenings for service members returning from deployments, and one that would ease the discharge of service members found to have personality disorders, but neither amendment passed. Another part of the bill, calling for inspector general reports about hospital facilities, had come from a different bill Obama had sponsored.

Even under the most generous reading imaginable could any of that count as passing legislation that extended health care for wounded troops? The Chicago Tribune noted the problem on its blog last week but defended Obama by pointing out that John McCain didn’t vote for the bill either. That would be an interesting piece of information if John McCain had cited this bill as among his chief legislative accomplishments.

The Obama team’s desire to pad the resume is understandable — it’s awfully slim after all. But this kind of dishonesty will catch up with them…or at least it should.

I bet the Obama Cult Followers are saying, "OH! HE NEVER SAID THAT, DAVE! YOU'RE EXAGGERATING, BECAUSE YOU'RE JUST A BIG OBAMA-BASHER, YOU...YOU...YOU...EVIL NEOCON!"

Well, see for yourself, here is his ad, in his own words. And watch the timer for the 46 second mark and you will hear him say that he “passed laws” that “extended healthcare for wounded troops who’d been neglected.”

I think the Meccachurian Candidate should simply begin all future statements, speeches and video messages with the phrase, "Once Upon A Time." In doing this, he would at least be slightly more truthful.

Watch the above Obama video again. See all those intentionally placed white floating crosses behind Obama? They look just like white, wooden window pane dividers (muntins), but are no doubt meant to resemble "white floating crucifixes". How pandering, how shameful. How low will he stoop to lie or deceive just to get a vote?

Yes, but did you know that like Kofi, Fraudbama loves climate justice? Why just the other day he was on his knees begging for climate justice. Crack had nothing to do with it I'm told. I also understand that a number of prominent DemocRATS are huge fans of climate justice. No matter how hard they try, they just can't get enough climate justice.